Free district
Origin Story of Free District Before the Revolution The Free District is the liberated colony of the former city of Washington DC. Until 1964, DC could not participate in any elections whatsoever, either national or local. The colony was under strict rule by the federal government, voted for by no one in Washington DC, and who ignored the needs of the population entirely. Until 1973, the District could only participate in national elections and had no manner by which to govern itself: no mayor, no governor, no senator, no congressperson. In 1973, after substantial unrest, the people of DC wrested a small amount of political power away from the federal government when they were enabled to elect a mayor, but congress (a governing body in which Washington DC has no voting representation) oversaw every vote and decision, and cherry picked what they wanted from those decisions to be the ones enacted: at different times stepping in to prevent gun control law, changing a city park names from Malcom X Park (chosen by an overwhelming majority of residents) to Meridian Hill Park, removing from budgets school funding, library funding, and funding towards AIDS prevention, even though the AIDS rate in Washington DC is higher than that of most sub-Saharan African countries. Right-wing politicians in Congress set out to overturn the Assault Weapons Ban, and did so in 2004. The "DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006" (which would enable DC voting representation in Congress) failed in 2007. http://tinyurl.com/yw5s5n http://tinyurl.com/37b3w6 The Uprising In 2008, an enormous campaign against gentrification and the selling of public lands to private developers outside of the city came to a head with the creation of Popular Neighborhood Assemblies. With the inability of the federal government to grant self-determination (surprise!), the popularity and efficacy of Popular Assemblies, and the legal status of assault weapons within city limits, Washington DC gained popular consciousness of its status as a colony. Residents took up arms and ousted all of the their oppressors from their formerly respected positions within the colony: politicians, yuppie gentrifiers, and tourists were all driven from the city limits at bayonet point. The US capitol was moved to Kennebunkport, Maine, and DC guerrilla fighters destroyed jails all over the country freeing DC residents to return to their newly reclaimed homeland. The Promise Fulfilled A network of mutual aid and solidarity was established where all lands and resources are owned communally, and residents are rewarded for effort and sacrifice. Rooftop gardens (more properly, farms) and fish farms in flooded townhouse basements feed the neighborhoods for free (though the work hours gained by the farmers grant them the ability to afford luxuries like first choice of the crop), and scrap metal from abandoned government vehicles are melted down for use as tools and bicycles. Workers councils and neighborhood councils are currently enacting new education programs and retributive justice systems to disintegrate the vestiges of domination (patriarchy, homophobia, racism), and replace the values inherited by capitalist hegemony, decolonizing the everyday lives of its citizens by reordering society towards feminism, intercommunalism, and biocentrism. Former anti-colonial liberation fighters under the banner of the DC Liberation Front train the people in self-defense. The Yoke Bucked Off In the culmination of the People's Revolution of the District of Columbia, the final US Army base stationed on the soil of Washington DC has been evacuated by the tireless efforts of the people. Unlike the vicious fighting that occurred during the initial revolution, where police officers in uniform and National Guard in fatigues were shot on sight by neighborhood militias, and when they returned to their District homes in the evenings, their neighbors greeted them with molotov cocktails and demonstrations outside of their houses, the final action was a nonviolent storm and occupation of the base by 200,000 District citizens. Tired of the incessant combat, the US declared that it would withdraw its troops from the territory within 24 hours. In celebration, there was a general strike that swept the country, and the last vestiges of the capitalist system were crushed: the workers at the last workplaces that were structured according to a capitalist model occupied their workplace and members of the neighborhood militias ferried the District's last bosses to the helipad from which the US Army personnel then promptly took off. Though Free District will deal with the echoes of capitalism until all communities are free and equal, stamping out the vestiges of bureaucracy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and white supremacy, the people now live under the black and red banner of Libertarian Socialism, now and forever. Mere weeks later, District residents shuffled off yet another vestige of domination when the last church was converted into a community center. Attendance at churches had been steadily waning since the outbreak of the revolution, and few members had been attracted to the fiery sermons of their former priests since being personally empowered both at their workplaces and in their neighborhoods. "These things meant a lot to our forefathers, but if there is a God, then he will judge us by our actions, which have served justice and put an end to tyranny, and not on whether we have begged for his mercy. We, as a proud people, do not beg now that capitalism is behind us." said a District Resident who has been setting up a community needs discussion group for his neighborhood in the former Salvation Army building in the Upper Northwest neighborhood of Parkview. Churches all over the city have been redesigned as community centers, decentralized neighborhood institutions of higher learning, meeting locations, and as performance theaters for District residents. Nation Name, Capital City, Motto, Flag Descriptions DC renamed itself the Free District scorning the genocide perpetrated by Christopher Columbus of the original peoples of the Americas, and combines the motto of the former colony of Washington DC (Justitia Omnibus, "Justice for All"), and the popular revolutionary and anarchist warcry, "Land and Liberty" into it's national motto: Terra quod Libertas Omnibus, "Land and Liberty for All." It flies an anarcho-syndicalist flag with the Washington DC flag emblazoned in green, reflecting the population of over two thirds New Afrikan, with its Red Black and Green prominent colors. A symbol for harmony and deep respect for both toilers of the field and laborers in the factories is foregrounded in white: The gear and wheat stalk is less associated with the statist atrocity of the Soviet Union's hammer and sickle, but retains its original meaning of communism. =Communications from the Workers' and Consumers' Councils of Free District= Free District Joins the Libertarian Socialist Federation Alliance "The humble people of the Free District wish to join the Libertarian Socialist Federation. The people of Free District first heard of the LSF through the news of your heroic war against those who would stamp out freedom. As a show of solidarity, 50 technology units were given to the ambitious freedom fighting nation of Cothiquen Republic, currently embroiled in three separate conflicts against the fascists. We have thus far been cautiously allied with the Socialistic Empire, despite their distateful politics of hero worship and statism, because after our rebellion we needed protection to build our nation from capital city underdeveloped by its white politicians and capitalists, into the proud, stateless, liberated nation we are today. Socialistic Empire were the first leftist alliance to court Free District. The Free District is currently culling the funds together to buy itself out of the SE's loan in order to leave their rotted half-revolutions for somewhere where freedom can thrive. We will join the Libertarian Socialist Federation when we have first regained the technology we gave as a gift, and second when we have raised the funds we owe the Socialistic Empire (2 million). Please send a telegram to our nation to give us further advice on how we, as a nation, can prepare to join the ranks of the brave liberation fighters of the LSF. " Free District's Great Leap Forward "Free District's revolution has stagnated. Crack cocaine, introduced into DC in the eighties to control revolutionarily minded folks kept on the margin of society, has reared its ugly head once more. Corruption of communal resources by crack dealers and a wave of addiction has had an effect on the most destitute of Free District. To respond to this crisis, the neighborhood and workplace assemblies of the Free District have consensed to cut back several of their new credit unions (banks) and raze all of their larger community centers (churches) to devote these resources toward solving the crisis. Treatment centers (labor camps) are popping up all over the country, and their method of addiction control is the employment of addicts towards the maintenance of social institutions and infrastructure. This will serve to both resocialize addicts with anti-social tendencies, and to build Free District into a stronger example of what a liberated people can accomplish. Terra quod Libertas Omnibus! " The last US troops have been removed from Free District! In the culmination of the People's Revolution of the District of Columbia, the final US Army base stationed on the soil of Washington DC has been evacuated by the tireless efforts of the people. Unlike the vicious fighting that occurred during the initial revolution, where police officers in uniform and National Guard in fatigues were shot on sight by neighborhood militias, and when they returned to their District homes in the evenings, their neighbors greeted them with molotov cocktails and demonstrations outside of their houses, the final action was a nonviolent storm and occupation of the base by 200,000 District citizens. Tired of the incessant combat, the US declared that it would withdraw its troops from the territory within 24 hours. In celebration, there was a general strike that swept the country, and the last vestiges of the capitalist system were crushed: the workers at the last workplaces that were structured according to a capitalist model occupied their workplace and members of the neighborhood militias ferried the District's last bosses to the helipad from which the US Army personnel then promptly took off. Though Free District will deal with the echoes of capitalism until all communities are free and equal, stamping out the vestiges of bureaucracy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and white supremacy, the people now live under the black and red banner of Libertarian Socialism, now and forever. (OOC: I just bought a Great Monument, so that everyone is always happy with my government type: Revolutionary) FD Press Release: The Last Church closes its Doors, Only to Have Community Reopen Them. Press Release: The Last Church closes its doors, Only to Have them Reopened by the Community BREAKING NEWS IN FREE DISTRICT District residents shuffled off yet another vestige of domination when the last church was converted into a community center for decentralized higher learning. Attendance at churches had been steadily waning since the outbreak of the revolution, and few members had been attracted to the fiery sermons of their former priests since being personally empowered both at their workplaces and in their neighborhoods. "These things meant a lot to our forefathers, but if there is a God, then he will judge us by our actions, which have served justice and put an end to tyranny, and not on whether we have begged for his mercy. We, as a proud people, do not beg now that capitalism is behind us." said a District Resident who has been setting up a community needs discussion group for his neighborhood in the former Salvation Army building in the Upper Northwest neighborhood of Park View. Churches all over the city have been redesigned as community centers, decentralized neighborhood institutions of higher learning, meeting locations, and as performance theaters for District residents. (OOC: I just bought a Great Temple, so that everyone is always happy with my national religion: none) Free District Builds Cosmonaut Program, DCCP spreads anarcha communism to stars! Breaking News from Burning Spear: Free District's Worker Newswire Posters wheatpasted all over Free District: Free District Builds Cosmonaut Program DCCP to send anarchist communism to Mars, the moon. The DC Cosmonaut Program (DCCP) has been established in the neighborhood of Congress Heights. Our people once looked to the stars to guide us North to our freedom from bonded slavery. Before the fires in our workplaces and police stations lit up the night, we crept with only moonlight guiding our path to the homes of our oppressors, the politicians, capitalists, and the yuppies, where we slit their throats and hung them from shattered lamp posts. After the fires of revolution, the freed District of Colombia basked in the light of the stars a free people. Years after our glorious struggle for liberation, we look again to the stars for a new diaspora, where Pan-African Feminist Anarchist Communism will spread to the moon and to Mars. The Black Bomb is Built, Fascist Digiterra Trembles. From the Burning Spear, most widely read newspaper in Free District: The Nuclear Testing Detected by United Nations at the site of the former United Snakes Empire's capitol is confirmed. The ground that trembled ominously in Free District was due to the tests and construction of the "Black Bomb," the nation's first Nuclear weapon. The glorious revolutionaries that liberated themselves from their 500 year colonization in and around what was formerly known as "Washington DC" have now gotten their hands on the most menacing of weapons to defend the Pan-Afrikanist, Feminist, Anarchist revolution of 2006, when the people rose up and took their freedom from the dead hands of their colonizers. "The Black Bomb can devastate any fascist or reactionary force that attempts to curb the spread of liberation for all humanity." said Comandante Kuwasi Balagun, a column leader in Free District's liberation army, as he oversaw a militiawoman painting the slogan, "Peace by Piece" on the nose cone of the first nuke rolled out of the self-organized munitions commune. This represents a sudden shift in the politics of Free District's workers and consumers councils, who had until very recently shied away from nuclear weapons. "We are dismayed that our peace-loving people have had to turn to such drastic measures for the defense of the revolution." said Nestor Durruti Magon, whose liberation army column lead the nation in fires set inside police stations in the first weeks of the 2006 revolution. "But the fascist menace rages across Digiterra. Now we can be sure not one fascist will pass Free District's mighty liberation army"